I felt like a zebra. I felt like a motherfucking zebra; arms striped with scars that held stories I could never explain, and July weather far too warm to wear long sleeves without suspicion. I truly hated my father, and I'm more than certain that the bastard hates me too. If he didn't, this whole situation could be nothing more than entirely fucked up, but from the chains of insults he took pleasure in throwing at me on a daily basis, I was more than content with the fact that he hated my guts.

I know everyone is staring: I'm just a new addition to the zoo, the freak show, the hallways of school and I don't exactly blame them for staring - it's causing me to blush violently, but at least they're occupying themselves, because, really, I'm practically doing a service for the bored and gossip hungry students. I've learnt enough about this hell of school, enough about society itself in fact, just to know how this shit goes and how it almost never goes in my favour, because from the moment I was born, I was a gazelle, and they, they're all the lions.

My father wasn't exactly happy with my late arrival home last night, and when he saw that someone had already started his job (that someone being everyone's favourite bastard of a younger brother Mikey Way) he wasn't exactly pleased. He just laughed, and then, his belt laughed with him. The alcohol laughed too, I think, but I was practically unconscious by then and it was rather hard to tell, not that I really wanted to, in fact, even thinking about the whole situation made my head pound like crazy and left me with the uncontrollable instinct to rid myself of the entirety of the contents of my stomach.

What Mikey had said about Gerard being dangerous couldn't quite leave my head, because despite how much my rationality told me to disregard it, the thoughts just came back; stronger and stronger each time - because, maybe things did add up, but really, I really didn't want them to. I just wanted Mikey to be the asshole and Gerard to be the nice guy, but no, that's not how it is, that's never how it is, because they're people, not stereotypes and their personalities range across bizarrely complex spectrums of hatred, pain, kindness, friendship, depression and love. And that's why people are so unique, so special, so human and yet so dangerous.

Dangerous. Yes, that's the word Mikey used. The word I hate him for using, the word that haunts my every waking moment; it's the word that won't leave me, it's the word I'll carry to my deathbed, and the word that'll be engraved upon my grave.

'Frank, he's dangerous.'

Surely we all are. Surely that'd just imply that he was human? Why I was so quick to counteract every word that left Mikey's mouth I had no idea, maybe it was because he was a major asshole, but then again, so was Gerard. Gerard was just different, I guess. There was always something different about Gerard; it was painfully obvious and terribly enigmatic, but there was no one quite like Gerard, and even though Mikey was biologically the closest, he was leagues away from Gerard.

It was almost like my mind chose to subconsciously forget when Gerard was a major dickwad to me; when we first met and he hated me, I hated him, I despised him, I loathed every inch of his being, but that doesn't seem to matter now, because in the scheme of things, Gerard's an alright guy, but surely that'd qualify Mikey as one too. Thinking of Mikey as Gerard's brother and not the guy that picks on me at school, was something that made my head hurt, my head spin in fact, in fact, it practically made me want to throw my head right off my shoulders and let my brain splat out all over the floor.

I like to think the Way brothers are polar opposites, but really, they're sickeningly similar, even down to those fucking hazel eyes. The hazel eyes are the bane of my being. From Gerard's beautiful and enticing ones, to Mikey's terrifying and fear striking ones.

And speaking of Way brothers, there he is - Mikey, and his little gang; all five of them sat atop the lockers again, because that's obviously so unbelievably cool. Mikey's much more than intelligent than all four of the others put together, but I think that's precisely why he hangs around with them so much. Mikey's that kind of guy who needs the constant extra ego boost. Gerard however, was already far too inflated on the ego front.

I tried to blend into the crowd with all my might, just willing their beady little eyes not to catch upon me, I'm not asking much - just to get to French, alive. Not that I really was so keen on learning French verbs, but the teacher wasn't exactly so keen on me being late for the third time this week, and I wasn't was so keen on finding myself in detention. Detention was just as much of a hellish creation as Skully himself, and coincidentally he seemed to find himself in there an awful lot, not that he actually cared at all. Skully just really didn't care about anything at all, and I was beginning to think that there was nothing that no one, not even Mikey could say to him that would slightly put off, let alone scare the guy.

My chances of not being noticed are decent: there's nothing obnoxious or standoffish about me - I'm just Frank. I don't stand out, I don't make commotion and I'm not ridiculously clumsily. They shouldn't notice me, but they do, of course they do. I'm beginning to think Skully has some sort of built in target detection system; did he develop that in the womb or is it just standard bully equipment? I'm not too sure.

"Look! It's that emo fag!" I shouldn't but I turn my head and I looked directly at them; I scanned over the original Killers, before laying my eyes on Mikey, letting them burn through his flesh for a few moments, just giving his some warning, attempting to use any possible leverage I had here. It probably wasn't the best idea, but I really was rather desperate.

Ash jumped off the lockers, and grabbed me out the stream of students rushing down the halls and pulling me into a deserted music classroom, they others following him. I heard a familiar click as Skully locked the door - how he even had the keys I don't know. Maybe the teachers are just as scared of him as the students - I wouldn't be surprised to be honest. The guy is brutal. No, Skully, is in fact the precise definition of brutal, this guy wrote the meaning of that word. When you look in the dictionary, Skully's already vandalised it rendering it impossible to look up any word, let alone brutal.

I glanced frantically around the music room, wondering if I could climb out a window or smash their heads against the wall with a ukulele. My chances looked pretty slim and I simply found myself backing into the wall as five sets of eyes pierced through my skin, bone, and straight to my heart. This was not going to go well for me.

"How you doing, Emo-ero?" Skully smirked to himself, looking rather impressed at how fucked my chances were, like seriously these rooms were soundproof as not to disturb other classes, so they could pretty much fucking murder me in here. My gut clenched as I came to realise that I wasn't even overreacting. I liked to think Skully wouldn't murder me, but really I couldn't promise myself anything, no matter how stupidly gullible I could be.

"Uhh..." The word fell off my tongue, looking around frantically, almost willing a door into the wall behind me, or any other magical escape route to appear as if by magic. But, I should have worked it out by now - magic was about as real as my chances of getting out of a situation like this anywhere near alive.

"Look at his arms." Vince rather obnoxiously 'whispered' to Skully. It was barely a whisper, because really I could hear it just as well as Skully. I think maybe it was the acoustics of the room or some bullshit like that, but really I didn't care all too much, in fact I was rather preoccupied with the five sets of eyes now fixated upon my arms. My zebra arms. My motherfucking zebra arms. I was a blazing zebra and for once I wasn't exactly that keen to be put on show.

It didn't take much to figure out what they were thinking. "Nice cuts, kid." Skully scoffed. He began to scan my limp form, "ooh, some bruises too. Did your boyfriend give you those when you refused to suck him off?" They burst into laughter, but Mikey didn't. Mikey's eyes went straight to the floor before I could get a decent glance at his reddening face. Okay, Mikey Way was only mildly an asshole.

"Ha! Gay." Thank you, Zachariah. Your homophobic slur in the language of a three year old was well appreciated, don't you worry. The intelligence these guys lacked was generally a laughable matter, but Mikey seemed to sort out the majority of the loopholes these guys seemed to make a living out of accidentally concocting.

"So's your mum." Skully rolled his eyes at Zachariah; clearly Mikey had been teaching him some vaguely competent methods to pick on someone with, which generally made my life shittier. "You want some more bruises, Iero?" He barked at me, his face contorting to look like a Rottweiler to match his tone of voice, and to say I was scared was an understatement.

"Not particularly." I was fucked anyways; I was allowed to entertain myself a little on my deathbed. Mikey snorted, whilst Skully glared at me with disgust, the others expressions blank and empty, almost as if they didn't expect that I could actually form a decent response, or even a comeback for that matter. Mikey's laughter though, was intriguing, because I knew Skully wasn't going to let something of that nature go easily.

"You find that funny, Way?" Skully snapped at Mikey, who quickly peeled his gaze up from the floor to meet his superiors. Despite how much I didn't like Mikey, I didn't like it when Skully reinforced his apparent unbreakable control over him, because really, Mikey owned all four of them, Skully's ego just wouldn't let himself admit it.

"No, no, not at all." It was ridiculous how Mikey could make himself up as some kind of big brave guy not to be messed with, yet when it came to Skully; he was probably more scared of the guy than I was. And that's when I found the difference between the Way brothers - Gerard wouldn't be scared of Skully, not at all. Or at least I hoped he wouldn't.

"Good and I suggest it stays that way if you don't want to be taking punches for him." Mikey nodded, avoiding my gaze religiously enough to make it awkward for the next few minutes. He was a coward really, and that almost made me sick. "Iero," Skully turned to me like some sort of war general - I bet he fancied himself as one, sick bastard.

"I suggest you cut that out if you don't want any more bruises." I nodded slowly, wondering what they could possible want with me in a locked room than to smash my skull into a nearby wall. Oh, maybe they just wanted to murder me. Murder would be much more sufficient at getting the job done and their message across, but really it wouldn't keep Skully entertained for long, because you can't torment a dead body. Even he knew that.

"So what's with the self-harm, faggot?" Vince sniggered, glaring at my zebra arms as if I was some sort of disgusting creature that deserved to be ridiculed. He was the disgusting creature here, he was just too blind to see it and those were the morals I kept myself sane off of, because one day I knew that I'd be out of this shit and into a nice home with a people that matter and I cared about, and I wouldn't have to worry about any of these guys not ever and especially not now.

"Yeah, what is with that shit?" Skully smirked at me, taking one step toward and narrowing his gaze, it was menacing, but at least he could focus on my gaze and not my arms, unlike the others. There was of course the dilemma that was inability to concoct some sort of believable answer to his horribly demanding question.

"I uhh..." Fuck, what could I even say? The truth - certainly not! 'Yeah, my dad abuses me.' Would go down great, and I really couldn't just agree with them and say I slit my wrists, because that's just wrong, I couldn't just say that. "Cat scratch." I went with the first thing that popped into my head and the shittiest thing at that. Not, even Ash believed that, and I swear Ash didn't even know we had a president until last week. There were eleven years old with a higher maths grade than him, and I knew that for certain.

"Liar." Skully yelled at me. I couldn't protest; he just stormed over to me and landed a fierce blow right to my balls. "That's what liars get, kid. You should learn that - your boyfriend ain't gonna be there to suck your dick all your life. He'll probably kill himself if he has to put up with you any longer, to be honest."

Another blow and I just lost grip entirely, passing out against the wall, slumped into a corner of a locked, soundproof music classroom, and that's exactly when I became the definition of hopeless.

Frank Iero: hopeless and far too alive for anyone's liking.

-

"Fuck, Frank are you okay?" I woke up to find someone shaking me, and even to my most surprise, I woke up to find myself alive. "Frank?" At first I was certain the voice was Gerard, but when I opened my eyes I found myself faced with the other Way brother. Mikey Way was one of the people I least wanted to talk to right now, but at least it wasn't Skully- or was Skully stood a few metres behind, out of sight and ready to pop out at me. I wouldn't be awfully that surprised at all. They were cowards and cowards worked in packs.

I rubbed my eyes and Mikey pulled me up with concerned eyes. "Where are the others?" I said with narrowed eyes, glancing around nervously, just waiting for the moment when The Killers popped out from behind a piano or something ridiculous like that. Heck, maybe they'd even pop out of a cake or something horribly taunting like that.

"Nowhere, it's just me." Mikey pulled me into a chair and grabbed himself one, sitting opposite me. Despite the expression on his face, the terribly believable expression, I didn't believe him, not at all. I couldn't believe someone like him, but really who could blame me; would you?

"You're only being nice to me because I know about Gerard." I snapped at him and he just looked at me blanking, not objecting to my statement, which suggested the obvious - that it was entirely the truth, and I really wasn't at all that surprised.

"Frank, I'm sorry about what happened - it's Skully, I just can't do shit, okay?" I chuckled, rolling my eyes, of course he couldn't - he's just Mikey, he's a coward, a fucking mess, but an asshole with a terribly over inflated ego that I could do nothing to fix.

"You're scared of him." I still tried to deflate that ego a little, because really, I had nothing else on and tormenting him, even if it was only a little, helped a lot.

"Who isn't?" Fair point, he just avoided the question, that's all, which clearly meant he was.

"You're Mikey Way, the all-powerful massive asshole with the secret brother-"

"He's not secret, just-" He butted into my sentence and I kindly returned the favour.

"Dangerous, yes I know - we've covered that previously." I narrowed my eyes at him, he just sighed, giving up presumably. I really didn't know, or care for that matter. Gerard wasn't dangerous and Mikey knew that I knew. It was all just bullshit, he just couldn't step his ego down a notch to allow himself to admit it.

"Frank, can we just-" He inhaled deeply, and just looked at my arms, "if that's self-harm, which I'm not saying it is, I'm sorry for what of it I may have caused, because I've been a dick, I know, but I don't want to be the cause of that, Frank, I-" I think he ran out of air entirely, so I simply took the liberty of finishing his sentence for him.

"It's not." I looked at the floor, reminding myself why I truly had zebra arms. "It's not self-harm." I had said that far too many times today and it was beginning to leave a physical impact every time I did.

"Oh." There was a pause that lasted several minutes. "You can tell me if it is, you know." Yes, thank you for you impact, Mikey. I'll certainly tell the guy who beats me up daily and is generally an asshole towards me that he would cause my zebra arms.

"It's not." I repeated, for the hundredth time.

"Cause you're at that group thing, I could understand why it might-" He was going to bring that up, not now, not ever.

"It's not fucking self-harm, Mikey." One hundred and one.

"Oh." I hope he finally got the message, but of course he wouldn't have.

"Did someone do this-?"

"Fuck off, you sound like Miss Craw." He chuckled slightly. I didn't like that.

"I could have just left you here, Frank." Mikey's tone changed vastly. "Be glad I didn't." Oh, power play? Is it like that, asshole?

"I could have told Skully about Gerard." I matched his tone. "Be glad I didn't." Yeah, fuckhead.

"Be glad I haven't punched you, Iero." I gulped, not one for wanting yet another bruise against my already damaged.

I didn't take my chances and ran out the room whilst I could, letting this serve as a reminder as to how essential it was to hate Mikey Way.

Hey guys:) Hope y'all enjoyed this chapter. Comments and votes are appreciated greatly - love you guys<3